Saturday, October 20, 2012

Seventeen Days -- And Only One More Debate

SEVENTEEN DAYS – AND ONLY ONE MORE DEBATE

Well,
folks, we may not be at the finish line, but we’ve sure come to the home
stretch.“The turn,” as they say in
horse racing, consisted of two debates.No, I’m not talking about the Romney/Ryan diversion – that was purely
for entertainment purposes.I’m
referring to the event a few weeks back when President Obama got off his horse
and droopily waited for Mitt Romney to approach him, and then the more spirited
tilt this past week, when the President leapt back on his ride, just as Romney
was about to overtake him, and took out the whip.Now that we are “headed for home,” as they
say in the Sport of Kings, President Obama once again finds himself with a
surmountable, yet clear, lead.Don’t
pay attention to the national polls – look at the swing state polls, and you’ll
agree that Romney will need to hit the proverbial trifecta to pull this one
out.

Truth
be told, this race track is a bit of a hybrid.For the most part, it looks like the track at a Triple Crown venue, with
nothing but clear skies ahead toward the finish line -- nothing, that is,
except for one obstacle, and in that regard, it looks like the track of a
steeplechase.The obstacle is this
coming Monday night’s debate, and the topic, of all things, is foreign policy.If Mitt Romney is to win this election, he
has to kick some serious butt in that debate.And that requires excelling on a topic in which his inexperience is
exceeded only by his apparent apathy.Before our eyes, he had better turn into a
reincarnation of John Foster Dulles – either that or you can bank on seeing a
whole lot more smiling and hand waiving from Barack Obama.Romney simply lacks any other opportunity to
seize back the momentum that he lost in this past debate.

Tuesday’s
town hall was a far cry from the debacle in Denver, where there was only
combatant.Obama mailed that one in
before the debate even started.But he
sure showed up in debate number two, and that put Romney in a bind.Obama is the sitting President.When awake, he comes across as Presidential –
classy, measured, intellectual, sharp, personable … and let’s not forget,
historic.Plus, the Romney campaign has
given him a whale of a narrative: that we face a choice between the leader who
saved GM and killed Bin Laden, and a gaffe-prone, detached plutocrat who is beholden
to troglodytes and is more of a shape shifter than that liquid- metal policeman
from the Terminator 2.On some level, I
suspect, Romney understands his plight as a candidate.And this is why, this past Tuesday night, you
could sense his desperation.He felt the
need to employ high school debate tricks to back the President into the corner,
alpha-male style, as if he were hoping that his rival would fall apart and pee
his pants.Sorry, but that kind of
strategy rarely works in the adult world, and certainly not on a stage like
this.If anything, when one candidate watches
the other look desperate, it only serves as a stimulant.

And
that brings us to next Monday night.What in Joseph Smith’s name can Mitt Romney do to score the needed
knockout?He has tried “Rush Limbaugh Mitt” in the
primaries.He has tried “Gordon Gecko
Mitt” when talking to fundraisers.He
has tried “Schoolyard Bully Mitt” in the last debate.None of them worked.So is he out of options?Not necessarily.Maybe he should think back to what did work,
if only for a moment: his first debate performance.He was respectful, genuinely funny (remember
the reference to Obama’s anniversary -- “I’m sure this was the most romantic place
you could imagine, here with me”), politically moderate, and proud of his
record as a unifier-not-a-divider.In
other words, this truly was “Governor” Romney – the RINO Chief Executive of the
People’s Republic of Massachusetts.That
one night, for perhaps the only time since Mitt began running for president a
half a decade ago, America liked what they saw from him.

Do
you see the irony?Barack Obama ran in
2008 as a change agent who is perfectly situated to heal the great divide. And now, four years later, America generally,
and Washington in particular, is more polarized than it has been since the
Gilded Age. Not only does Obama appreciate
that sad truth but he also realizes its consequences.If this country is to retain its place as the
brightest “light unto the nations,” it will need to undertake great national
projects in which all hands are on deck (meaning government, capital, labor, and
civil organizations must buy in together). Sadly, with a sharply polarized political
culture, no such promise can be fulfilled.Instead, we can look forward to mounting debt, governmental gridlock,
business uncertainty, and the continued passing of the torch to leaner and
hungrier economies overseas.This is one
point on which we can all agree – polarization is a fatal poison to our
national interests.The problem is that
when it comes to identifying the antidote, there’s where the agreement ends.

Pundits
wonder why the President doesn’t talk more about his plans for the future.But the answer should be obvious: the
President doesn’t know how to purge ourselves of the poison that’s been
destroying our society.I’m not saying
he has given up.I’m just saying he can’t
possibly be confident.As long as the
Republicans want to make him a relatively impotent President, they can do
so.They know it, and so does he.That’s why his campaign promises are so
tepid, and his rhetoric is anything but soaring.That’s why we’re seeing him campaign almost
entirely about Mitt Romney and not about Barack Obama.

Frankly,
it does present an opportunity for a challenger.And if Romney could have only run as Governor
Romney (rather than as Shape Shifter Romney), he might actually be in business
right now.But he can’t bring himself to
do it, can he?Governor Romney was
successful because bi-partisanship was his only option.If he had governed as a conservative Republican,
he would have been rolled over by his state’s overwhelmingly Democratic
Congress.It’s known as a veto-proof
government, and it would have made the Governor more vestigial than the
appendix.Now, unfortunately for Mitt,
when he looks out at his “audience,” he doesn’t see a bunch of liberal
Democrats (or moderate Independents) whom he has to meet halfway; he sees a
bunch of friggen Flat Earthers.This is
a Party that has turned Michelle Bachman into a leader, and that won’t even make room for Dick Lugar, one of the great, bi-partisan
statesmen of our era.It certainly
doesn’t have room for “Governor” Romney.So … he shape shifts, talks about “etch-a-sketch” campaigns, and hopes
that somehow, President Obama won’t show up for debates.It worked once.It won’t work again.

If
Mitt Romney wants to become President of the United States, he has but one
chance: really make a play for the Independents and hope to hell that his base
hates Obama enough not to desert their Party’s newly-moderate flag-bearer.Romney would have to trump his record as a
unifier, put Obama on the spot as someone who has failed in that capacity, and
hope that the American public blames that failure on Obama (rather than the
Republican Congress).Honestly, if a
moderate voter is seriously considering voting for Mitt Romney, his argument
wouldn’t be that Obama is solely or even primarily at fault for failing to stop
our toxic polarization.The argument
would be that, for whatever reason, Obama hasn’t get the job done and maybe Romney
can.It could have been a decent
argument … if Romney had tried to pursue this approach over the past few months
and demonstrated an ability to put together a coalition across ideological
lines.But that hasn’t really happened,
now has it?And that is why, when push
comes to shove, anything Romney tries will likely be too little, too late.

Still, though, the race isn’t over yet.Romney does have, as they say in poker, “a
chip and a chair.”Nobody expects him to
spend all of Monday night’s debate talking about foreign policy; clearly, he
will work in references to economic issues early and often.Perhaps he’ll also tie his comments together
with compelling remarks about his track record as a “unifier.” And, perhaps, Obama will make a fatal misstep
of his own.While I doubt the latter
will happen, it’s certainly possible.But what’s of paramount importance isn’t what happens on Monday night,
or even on the first Tuesday of November.It’s the need for the people of this nation to recognize that we are
being poisoned by polarization and the gridlock that ensues from it, and that we
truly do need to work together to find an antidote.Whoever is best situated to provide that
antidote deserves to be our next President.And whichever gentleman is elected had better make finding the antidote
one of his highest goals.

This nation won World War
II because it came together after Pearl Harbor for a common purpose.And it came together again after 9/11.Do we truly need to be the object of violent
attacks in order to come together?And
if so, does that make us a warrior nation, rather than one that thrives on
peace?I sure hope it doesn’t.It would be sad if we have reached the point
in our history where we require death and destruction in order to prosper as a
people.

About Me

I am a full-time attorney whose career has been spent investigating and litigating against corporate fraud. I also coordinate the Washington D.C. Spinoza Society and the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington, and am active in various interfaith and peace organizations. In addition, I am the author of three books -- two philosophical novels and one non-fiction book concerning the meaning of divinity. You can read all about me and my work at www.danielspiro.com. Check it out!